Emilio, Luis F., History of the Fifty-Fourth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry , 1863-1865

[209] and two guns, was ordered to ascertain our strength. About 9 A. M. on the 3d, this force was discovered advancing, and our pickets retired before it. Then the monitors Montauk and ‘Lehigh’ and the gunboat Pawnee, having taken position in the Stono the previous evening, opened, preventing their farther advance, and causing a retirement at 11 A. M. But they manoeuvred in our front the whole day, with skirmishers established about the old fieldwork we held on the 2d. Our rifle trenches were strengthened with two guns posted on Colonel Heine's front; and Colonel Hartwell's captured pieces were also in position. The naval vessels slackened fire in the afternoon. Excessively warm weather continued. No service was required of the Fifty-fourth during that day. Surgeon Briggs reported for duty, and Lieutenant Newell was sent to hospital. At dark the Fifty-fourth relieved the Seventy-fourth, Pennsylvania. Our main body occupied the rifle trenches, with Captain Emilio and seventy-five men, supported by one gun thrown forward upon the causeway within three hundred yards of the enemy's line, and Lieutenant Cousens and twenty-five men still farther advanced. Our line was quiet, but on the right there were frequent shots, and a few rifleballs fired by our own troops in rear of our flank fell near. Our mortar schooner Racer kept firing slowly. So the night passed with but one man of another regiment killed. General Hatch on John's Island that day advanced on the road running parallel with Bohicket Creek and halted at Parker's, where a road branched to Stono on the right. The march, though short, was severe because of the heat.

Just at dawn on Independence Day, the Fifty-fourth was reduced one half for the day. We could see that the enemy had fortified their line at or about the old